Faith
by Jody Barsch
Summary: If Beth had NOT been kidnapped and Daryl and Beth had stayed on the road together. [On a short hiatus, not abandoned]


Having narrowly escaped the undertaker's house, Daryl and Beth have been on the road for close to two months. Every place they've found they've had to leave; there's never enough gasoline to siphon to fuel a vehicle, their feet hurt, their bodies ache, their skin's burned. They're under nourished and exhausted, but they're making a go of it, trying to keep one step ahead, looking for a place they can call safe. By this time they've got a tent, a sleeping bag, a couple flashlights, a couple more hand guns, and a cache of pecans. Not much, but better than when they'd started. Most nights they're still camped outside.

They've been moving west, and for now are camped upside the Sawhatchee Creek, in which Beth currently stands, ankle deep, trying to hook some fish. Daryl's behind her, up the slope, straddling a fallen log and cleaning and loading the guns. Beth splashes some water on her face and neck, feeling the cool drops drip down the back of her shirt. The refreshment of it only lasts a second, the heat, and the humidity is oppressive. She can feel her shoulders are burning again. Georgian summers can be miserable, with little relief from the heat and the heavy stifling air, but she isn't looking forward to another winter on the road. The chill was impossible to shake, and the icy rigidness in their muscles made it difficult to run. They need to find something, some place. There has to be a place. They can't go on like this indefinitely... They _will _ find something, she tells herself. They will be okay. Safe.

"Any luck?" Daryl calls to her from up the bank where he's working.

Beth turns back and sees him squinting at her; she shakes her head. "Uh, uh." She wipes the pooling sweat off her brow with her forearm and studies the ripples in the water, "The caddis are hatching, they're not bitin' on what I've got."

Daryl scratches his temple with a revolver, "Shoot, those fish've had it _ea_-sy. Nobody catchin' 'em for close tuh three years? They gotta be teamin'. We'll get 'em; they're just a little self-satisfied right now, gotta take 'em down a notch."

Beth turns back to the water, smiling a little. When she glances back over her shoulder, she catches him still squinting in her direction; Daryl drops his head and returns to the guns. After two hours already Beth reels in her line a little and sets the rod in a piling of rocks to hopefully do the work for her. She rinses off her hands in the river, and drying them on her jeans heads back up the bank to camp. Daryl doesn't look up, just keeps at his task, and so she busies herself with setting the camp straight, sorting their meager supplies, checking their water.

Eventually she rises and crosses closer to him. "Daryl?"

Daryl turns back from the gun he'd been cleaning, "What's up?" Beth just stands there, she purses her lips and looks at him. Her eyes wide, Daryl stops and watches her. "What? Greene?"

Beth only shakes her head, she doesn't have the words. Daryl would dismiss her and turn away, but she's intent, and so he waits. Beth looks down, watching herself take a step toward him, then lifts her eyes and looks at him as she steps closer, closing the gap between them. What she does now she isn't certain where she's gotten the confidence to do it, but she does do it, and she is not afraid to do so: Beth reaches out, and takes his hand in hers. It would be a simple enough thing to do, if it was done in friendship, in camaraderie, for comfort, but those are not what moved her hand to his. He watches, like it isn't actually happening to him, his jaw set, his gaze stark. Lightly Beth tugs his hand toward her, and holds it to her hip. She lifts her face up to his. She is open, and bright, and waiting. But Daryl doesn't move. He isn't doing anything — he allows his hand to remain in hers, but his expression is unreadable. His stoicism once had intimidated her, but no longer. Beth lifts her chin higher, bringing her pink mouth ever nearer to his.

The wrinkles around his eyes crease as Daryl looks down at her, "Whut 're you doin'?"

Beth's large blue eyes roll at him. "You kn_ow_," she reminds him. "Daryl, you know."

"Naw," he shakes his head, "uh, uh. It ain't right."

"Why not?"

"That's not what this is."

Beth's brow creases, "What do you mean?"

"I'm the _chaperone_," he spits gruffly. "'Member? 'Mr. Dixon.' _Right_?"

She smiles at him, "I didn't mean it like th_a_t."

"Your _dad_," he throws at her. "_Maggie_."

"What about them?"

Daryl glances at her, he shouldn't have to be explaining this; they shouldn't be having this conversation "…It's just," his head shakes soberly, "not whut this _is_."

"_Daryl_," she says, softly, groundedly trying to reason with him.

Daryl's getting twitchy, he can't even look at her. "Com'on now …" and he swings his arm in agitation, his rough country boy drawl brushing her off, discounting every thing she's said as damned foolishness. Anything else he might have said is interrupted when she rises on her toes and kisses him. Beth kisses him lightly, like she's ready for him to push her off any moment, like she knows it'll be hard for him to take. Daryl doesn't push her back. He doesn't return the kiss; he makes no move at all. Daryl is stolid, and anchored in place. It's not that easy to reach him.

When she pulls back she smiles at him, smiling a little mocking smile at him. "You don't always have to be the good guy. Daryl Dixon."

"_Shoot_," Daryl breaks his eyes away from her and brushes the kiss off with a few heavy footed paces. Dismissively he swings his arm back at her, grunting, "It's not h_i_gh school—"

"It i_sn't_?" she plays flatly. "You mean, I'm _not_ going to miss homeroom?"

"Shut up." His eyes roll, then he moves toward her with regulated aggression, "_You forgotten where we are? What we're up against?_" He's sneering now, in that way that he does, in that way that isn't quite cruel, but can cut if you let it, "You don't go 'round kissin' people 'cuz you're _bored_."

"'_Bored_'?" she echoes with incredulity. "_Yeh_," she scoffs. "I'm 'bored'. We're on the run all the time. We've lost _eh'_vrybody else, you _say_ nixt tuh nothin'—" Beth watches him blink and the creases round his mouth tighten, and she shakes her head at him; there's so much he doesn't get. "I'm not _bored,_" she repeats. Then the dimples appear, "You're dumber than you look."

Daryl's head turns to her, he looks at her through narrow slanted eyes. He bites his tongue, looking as though he could shout at her, but instead he huffs a sigh, waves her off and steps away.

Daryl shoulders his bow, "Gonna check the snares," he mutters. "You good on amo?"

"N_o_," she insists, and demands his attention, "_Dary_l." He stops; his eyes flash to her before he looks away again. "You d_o_n't git to walk away."

"_You_ wanna check 'em?" he retorts, gesturing to the woods.

"_Daryl_."

"Stop it, Beth."

"No," Beth's watchful eyes blink. "Ah've _seen_ you. Looking at me." Her long lashes hold his eyes to hers.

"_No_," he grumbles, shaking his head.

"But," she smiles, not the least dissuaded, "you_ hav_e."

"_Whudd'ya want_?" he throws at her, but underneath the glare Daryl's face softens and his eyes fall on her, and Beth can feel the shift between them. Beth waits, and though nothing in the outside world has changed — it's still as dangerous and ugly— in this moment it does seem like the world has stopped and everything is about the space between their lips. The dwindling distance closing between them. The lock between their eyes does not break; Daryl bites down on his tongue, her lashes flutter, his eyes narrow as his face tenses in thought…

Beth wets her slightly parted lips and blinks her consent. And then Daryl's hand is at the back of her head, pulling her ponytail, grasping her neck, holding her face in position with his, and then his mouth's on hers, kissing her with intemperate passion.

Daryl kisses her hard, though he'd never intended to do so at all. They're not supposed to be together — she's still just a kid, different from him in pretty much every way there is. But the feeling of her in his arms— He can't let go. Beth wraps her arms around his neck, she stands on her toes, runs her fingers through the long rough hair at the nape of his neck, and she holds him.

Daryl Dixon had frightened her when she'd first met him, when he and the others had shown up at the farm. They'd spent an entire winter on the road with the group and they'd barely talked, certainly not about anything more than food, shelter, formation, walkers. At the prison — anywhere really — he was 'Daryl Dixon': fearless and a leader. He spoke little, he didn't bullshit or second guess; he was reliable, and he made the group strong.

But they hadn't been friends. Sometimes they talked, sometimes he came to see Judith, but he was always far away. There, present, but distant. Daryl knew every person at the prison, but he was only friends with Rick. And Carol. And Maggie and Glenn, maybe. And her dad. Would've been with Michonne, if she was around. But not with her. Daryl fought for, survived for, acted for, the _group. _Never just for her. Never for her first.

And Daryl never had been on her mind. Not in the way that lingers, and fascinates. Never before now. He'd made her hate him when they'd first escaped together, but that hadn't lasted, and suddenly Daryl was real. On the road with her, just the two of them on the run, he was more than the muscle, more than a guardian, more than her only remaining companion. Daryl is—

The alarm cans jangle on the perimeter rope and their break away is immediate. With deadly force Daryl pulls the knife from his belt and jumps on the thing, pulling it to him as he drives the blade down into the skull. "Douche bag," he grunts as he kicks the thing backwards.

Behind him Beth whispers, "Do you see any more?" Daryl glares into the distance, his feet apart, ready to move, his knife poised in ready anticipation, "Naw," he shakes his head. "Don't think so." His tensed muscles relax and he lowers his knife to his side, "Think we're goo—" Turning back to her he stops.

Beth too has lowered her weapon, but more than that she's removed her shirt. She's standing there across the camp from him, small and slight, pale and pretty, thin in her worn and graying bra, and— his, for the taking. Beth watches him seeing her. He blinks, and the muscles in his face twitch imperceptibly. They've been on the road together for months, by now he's seen her in various stages of undress, but it was all blank nothingness, factual and utterly unstimulating. The difference now is she's showing him, inviting him to see her.

Almost bashfully Daryl lifts his eyes to her, and seeing her he bites his lower lip, rueful with desire and electric anticipation. Her solemn certainty is stirring. Beth laughs a little smile, "Daryl, it's ok_a_y."

Instinctually Daryl surveys the woods around them: he neither can see, nor hear any sign of a walker. When he looks back at her, she's still smiling at him, that little sparkling dimpled smile of hers. Daryl hadn't counted on ever feeling this way again. It'd been years.

For years now he's been keeping busy, killing walkers, looking out for the group, hunting, going on runs, sitting on the council… just, getting by. Trying to find a moment to breathe. Anything else, anything resembling a real life — a life beyond survival and losing people, and doing whatever you can do not to lose people — was let go. Women, hadn't been on his mind. While all around him people had been pairing up, Rick n' Lori, Glenn n' Maggie, Tyresse n' Karen, Beth n'… It never crossed his mind. It was hard to justify sex as a priority with the world having gone so completely to shit.

But now she's there, Beth Greene, standing right there in front of him, with all the same losses, with all the knowledge of who he used to be, telling him to take a chance. She's inches away from him, telling him she isn't going any place, telling him to have some faith. There're reasons not to, there're things that'll be made harder by this, but Daryl stops thinking and he takes her small fresh face in his hand and he kisses her, and Beth returns it.

In his arms Beth pulls her knife from her belt and drops it to the ground. She breaks away from his kiss, and with wide, watchful eyes tugs open his shirt and vest. She kisses his collar bone and neck and pulls him down with her. "Beth," he breathes, "you sure?" Beth kisses him and nods. She is not a girl in his arms, she's come of age and Beth _sees_ Daryl Dixon. He is not a man to be feared, he is a man to be rallied behind, to travel with. To befriend. To love.

Buckles and holsters and zippers and buttons are grappled with and undone, and Daryl takes this young woman in his arms, lifting her to him, and covering her completely. "_Be-eth_…" Softly she catches his mouth with hers, and lets herself be taken in by him.

...

Spent and satiated, Daryl rolls off her, and they lie in the summer grass with the late afternoon sun beating down on them. They breathe, and catch their breath, letting their heart rates slow to normal. Beth's fingers travel to find his, and finding them she takes his hand. "_Man_," he exhales.

In time they rise, and dress. Beth shoots a walker with his crossbow, and Daryl heads out to check the snares. Few words are exchanged.

* * *

That night, by the fire, as Daryl's cottontail roasts over the embers, Beth sits by the fire, holding her knees to her chest, listening to the crickets and the sparks in the fire crackle. Wiping his hands on his pants legs, Daryl comes and sits beside her, purposefully close. A moment or two more and his arm wraps around her shoulder, he pulls her in. Huddled together they sit in silence watching the low flames flicker. In time Daryl's gruff voice breaks the silence, "Never done that before."

Over her shoulder Beth sneaks a wry look in his direction, "_No-o_," she smiles. She knows full well not to believe that one.

Daryl cocks an eyebrow, "Ain't no fl_o_wer, if th_a_t's whut ch'ya mean."

"Ah kn_o-o_w," she smiles, and turns her face toward his — he notes how the light from the fire brightens her face and lights her soft curls in a golden halo — "you're _o_ld," she smiles again, her dimples deepening.

Daryl smirks. "I _am_?"

"Yeah," she smiles again. "'Old.'"

There's no denying he's close to double her age, and no use claiming being this long on the run hasn't taken its toll, but she'd only meant it as a tease, even more just as evidence against his claim, so Daryl drops it, and lets his arm slip from her shoulder to her waist. He steals a quick glance at her, "Ev'r done that? B'fore?"

Now it's Beth who looks at him, "With Jimmy?" she incredulously clarifies. "Z_a-a_ch?" She hadn't. Before, there'd never been the time or the place, and she hadn't been sure she'd wanted to — _all the way_; and maybe after, with everything else stripped away from the world, and left with nothing but time and the space, it hadn't seemed so urgent to do. Plus there had been other things to think about. And maybe, though the world was hardly recognizable as itself, maybe she wasn't ready to give up on that part of herself, the part that let things matter, that deemed things special; the part that was thoughtful, and reflective, and believed in waiting... At any rate, she never had, not all the way, and the thought of having done so with either of them, now feels outlandish. _What did those boys know about her? _Jimmy and she had started hanging out after a class project in American history had thrown them together a lot; Zach because they were the right age — because it was something to do to occupy their thoughts and their time that wasn't _death_. They didn't _know_ her.

Maybe no one in the world knows her except for Daryl Dixon.

Daryl shrugs his response. She was sixteen when he'd met her, datin' high school boys and having had lots of friends — hard to know if she had been 'too young', or 'old en'ough'. Beth too shrugs lightly; she doubts Jimmy would even recognize her now. She stares into the glowing embers, her eyes fluttering in long, heavy blinks. "Not all of it."

Daryl swipes his free hand at the grass, and pulling up a long blade sticks it between his lips. His jaw twinges. In the quiet Daryl lets his head drop back and he looks up into the stars. "It's good," he says finally. "I reckon; good there 're still firsts." Chewing on his blade of grass he sneaks another glance at her, "Good ones, I mean."

Beth's fingers reach out and find his, and in the solemn darkness she holds his hand as they stare into the blaze. In time Daryl ducks down and kisses her bare shoulder blade. "Ah love you, B_e_th. And not 'cuz you're the only person I know alive in this world."

Her fingers grasp tighter to his. "I love you, Daryl Dixon." Beth leans back against him, resting her head against his shoulder. "M_y_ dad loved you. He did. And Maggie an' Glenn." The fire pops. "You're my family."

His arm around her, his hand in hers, Daryl listens for walkers, and thinks about the touch of her lips against his. "Go tuh sleep, I'll take this watch."

* * *

**AN: **_Thank you reading! There is more to come but this will be a fairly short piece; I'm predicting 3-4 chapters in total, but we shall see... Feedback and constructive criticism is much appreciated._


End file.
